


Becoming Well

by Shx-insp (kevin_solo)



Series: Post Sozin's Comet [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Takes place after Zuko and Azula's Agni Kai
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27893290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kevin_solo/pseuds/Shx-insp
Summary: Ozai is defeated, but Zuko is unconscious after being struck with lightning. Everyone has to learn to cope with the uncertainty of his health and grapple with what end of the war means if they cannot celebrate yet.
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Katara
Series: Post Sozin's Comet [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2042494
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a prequel to the other fic in this series but they can each be read separate from one another.

Zuko stands over Azula as she flails on the ground screaming. He should be mad at her, but he can’t bring himself to feel anything but pity and exhaustion. The Fire Sages come back into view and ratify his victory, even if he knows that it was Katara who beat her and not him. Regardless, if Aang has killed his father, he will officially be the next Fire Lord. Although this had been his plan since he arrived in the Fire Nation, the reality of the situation is only now beginning to sink in. Soon, Agni willing, he will be Fire Lord, he will be tasked with rebuilding a country after 100 years of war. He will have to make peace with the other nations, regain their trust and the trust of his nation. The task already seems overwhelming but, he tells himself, if he has Aang to help him he’ll do fine. For now, what he has to worry about is his sister and the exhaustion he has felt since being shot with a bolt of lightning.  
“She is sick. She needs help. Make sure she stays well guarded and well cared for.” He tells the Fire Sages, who take her, still chained up, away from the courtyard.  
He feels his chest burn and his heart beat faster before it begins to skip beats. This isn’t just nerves, he realizes, something is wrong. He grabs Katara’s arm with one hand and his chest with the other.  
“Zuko,” She says as she supports some of his weight, “Are you okay?”  
“I’m fine,” He tells her between hard breaths, “I just need to sit down.” He barely gets the sentence out before his world goes black.  
Katara catches him as he falls and lays him softly down. “Zuko,” she says urgently as she shakes his shoulder, “Wake up.” She begs, but he does not respond. She grabs water from the aqueduct running below them and tries to heal him. She can feel every struggling beat of his heart, the cooling of his usually too warm body as it conserves energy to stay alive. As the water shows her the way through his body she feels sick. She doesn’t know what to do, something similar had happened with Aang after Ba Sing Se, he had briefly regained consciousness before passing out again. During the weeks he was unconscious she almost lost him, but his spirit was strong, every healing session she would feel his spirit assisting her, all of his past lives working to keep him alive. Zuko does not have the same spirit clinging to life, he’s strong but he’s not the Avatar. When she tries to heal him she can sense him inside but he isn’t able to help. She tries to heal the heart but the inflammation throughout his entire abdomen makes navigating the precise and intricate valves and electrical pathways impossible. Healing the outside of a body is easy, you can see exactly what you are healing and are simply using water to mend the tissue. Even bones are fairly simple, they are simple structures that, once they are realigned only need to have cracks and breaks healed and mended. The internal organs are far more difficult, the body is full of valves and ducts, organs with complex functions that all depend on one another. They need to be healed more slowly, it takes more energy and time for places that healing water cannot fully reach to mend. Zuko’s body is going to need to do a lot of the fixing on its own, her healing is to help it along and to make sure he lives long enough to recover.  
She doesn’t know how long she sits there trying to heal the internal burn in his abdomen even beginning to address the damage to his heart and muscles. Occasionally his body twitches beneath her but by the time Aang, Toph, Suki, and Sokka walk, or in Sokka’s case, hobble, into the courtyard, she’s learned to stop getting her hope up, that it isn’t him regaining consciousness, it’s just the electricity’s damage to his nerves. She will have to work on healing that once he is stabilized.  
When Sokka sees his sister crouch over his unconscious friend he fears the worst. Before he can even speak he tries to accept it. “What happened?” Sokka asks hesitantly.  
“Azula, I ended up beating her but she shot him with lightning.” She explains, her voice nearly cracking at the end. The exhaustion is audible in her voice, but she doesn’t take her hands off Zuko.  
“Is he –” Aang begins.  
“He’s alive,” Toph interrupts, “But he’s not doing so hot.” Rare fear washes over her as she asks, “Katara, is he going to make it?”   
Katara signs and momentarily releases the water, allowing it to spill over Zuko’s chest, “I’m doing everything I can, but I don’t know.” She tells them, “Aang, Zuko was reunited with his uncle last night, he should be in Ba Sing Se. I think you should take Appa and go get him, I’m sure he’d want to be around no matter what happens.”  
“Are you sure? I could help you with Zuko.” Aang asks. He knows he can’t really help, he can’t heal and he doesn’t know anything about medicine, but he doesn’t want to leave Zuko. He’s scared that by the time he gets back from Ba Sing Se his friend will be gone.  
“I’m sure.” Katara tells him, “Go quickly. Appa is in the garden by the back gate to the palace.”  
Aang glides to Appa with Momo and talks to the bison to calm himself, “It’s gonna be okay buddy, Katara brought me back when I was gone, Zuko will be fine.” Swiftly he gets on Appa and takes off towards the city where he was shot by Azula.   
As Aang fly aways, the remaining members of their group are led into a suite of rooms by the Fire Sages, Toph creates a makeshift stretcher out of earth for Zuko and her and Katara carefully and solemnly carry him in while Suki serves as Sokka’s second leg. Once in the suite Sokka falls onto the couch elevating his leg with Suki by his side and Zuko is brought into one of the bedrooms. Katara cannot heal any more right this second, she’s exhausted and her healing is already overtaxed so she tucks him under the covers and sits on the loveseat in the room to rest for a moment. “Toph?” She asks, “Can you stay in here and tell me if anything changes? You can actually tell if he’s getting worse.”  
Toph doesn’t say anything but just sits on the bed, feeling Zuko’s weak and erratic heart beat, the labored breathing from his burnt lungs, and the twitches of his muscle, silently terrified for him.


	2. Chapter 2

When Aang gets to Ba Sing Se, the comet has passed and the sun is nearly set. Flying above the city, he gets an overhead look of the city and is overwhelmed by the size, there is no way he will be able to find Iroh quickly in a city this big with no leads as to where he would have gone. He searches his mind for some clue that might tell him where Zuko’s uncle’s could be. Aang thinks back to the weeks he spent at the Western Air Temple drinking tea with Zuko who told him about the time he spent in the city. He had mentioned, with great pride, that his uncle had opened a tea shop in the upper ring just before Azula arrived. It’s not much to go on but it is a start. He flies lower, towards the upper ring, passes by his old house, and eventually comes across a building with green accents and a crowd gathering out front. He lands Appa and asks him to stay put while he checks the building. Aang goes up to one of the men in line and asks, “Why is everyone standing out here?”

The man responds excitedly, “The city has been liberated! The owner of the shop is hosting a celebration.”

Aang walks closer to the building, sliding between people to get to the window. At the front he is shocked to find Pakku pouring tea.

“Master Pakku,” Aang addresses him, bowing as he encounters one of the last people he expected to find in an Earth Kingdom tea shop. 

“Aang, I am glad to see you. Your friends ended up at our encampment last night and they were concerned for you. Were you successful in your mission?” The elderly man responds.

Aang nods. It feels too casual of a way to announce that the war is won and he is confused about who is included when he says “our”, but right now he just needs to find Iroh and get back to the Fire Nation. He suspects it might be a long shot when he asks, “You wouldn’t happen to know where General Iroh is would you? I need to talk to him.”

“Is something wrong?” The waterbender asks.

“Please, I really need to talk to him.” The Avatar begs.

“Very well, he should be in the kitchen, go on in.” Pakku tells him.

Aang is relieved to know that, for some reason he doesn’t understand yet, his first waterbending master knows and is working with Iroh. Without a moment's hesitation he runs in. The tea shop is full of happy faces toasting their tea to freedom and a new era, but he doesn’t pay any notice to the patrons and rushes to the kitchen in the back of the shop. 

“Avatar Aang, what an unexpected pleasure. I take it you were able to see defeat my brother?” Iroh greets him with a hot pot of tea in his hand. 

Once again he nods in response, but before his friend’s uncle can congratulate him, Aang nervously tells him, “You need to come with me.”

Iroh’s face goes pale as the marble pillars, he braces himself for the worst. His mind conjures up an image of Zuko lying still and with his eyes glazed over on a battlefield, but tries to push that image away. Even if it is the reality that the Avatar has come to share, now is not the time for those images. “What happened?” He asks urgently.

“It’s Zuko.” The young man begins and Iroh’s eyes begin to look somewhere past him, “He’s hurt really bad. Katara thinks you should be there.”

The old man’s eyes refocus as he breathes out a sigh of partial relief. “Then there is no time to lose.” He says. As they walk to the front of the restaurant he hands the tea pot off to Piandao before rushing out of the shop and through the crowd. As they push through the crowd they can hear snippets of conversation about how the Avatar is there, or how the older man looks like he’s about to faint, but neither pay much attention. Aang leads Iroh to Appa and helps him on to the saddle before taking off. 

Once they are in the air Iroh asks, “What happened to my nephew?”

Aang tells him “I really don’t know. Katara said Azula shot him with lightning. She’s trying her best to heal him but...” He doesn’t know how to end the sentence. When Aang sees the look of terror on the older man’s face he tries to console him, “Zuko’s in good hands, Katara was able to heal me after she struck me.” Aang says.

The former general closes his eyes and hums in agreement, although it's clear that that answer does not satisfy him. Aang doesn’t know Iroh well, but he knows that the anxious man sitting behind him is not himself, he’s not acting like the caring kind man who gave him advice and helped lead him to Katara in Ba Sing Se. For hours neither says anything with Iroh being too distressed to begin a conversation and Aang being too exhausted to speak. It strikes Aang as he flies over the ocean that it is actually over, that he defeated the Fire Lord and lived to tell the tale, but he can’t declare victory, not with Zuko lying injured somewhere in the palace. If Zuko doesn’t make it he doesn’t know what would happen to the possibility of peace. Iroh could take the throne but Aang’s not sure he’d be able to successfully run a nation after the loss of Zuko. If this distant man is what he turns into at his nephew's injury and Aang doesn’t know what would happen if hope was taken away from him.

They arrive at the palace very late at night. Upon landing they are greeted by one of the Fire Sages who leads them towards the apartment the rest of their little group is in. Sokka is still awake and elevating his leg on the couch in the communal space when they walk in.

“How is he?” Aang asks.

“He hasn’t woken up yet.” Sokka responds, “He’s in there if you want to see him.” He tells them, pointing at one of the bedrooms. 

Iroh rushes into the bedroom, lit dimly by candle light. Toph lays asleep on a free section of bed while Katara paces the room. In the center of the large bed lies his nephew, vulnerable and still. Before he is able to stop himself, before even greeting the young healer, he rushes to his nephew’s side, falls to his knees, grabs his clammy hand, and holds it close to him. “Oh Zuko,” He whispers to the young man, “I’m so sorry.”

“I’ve been doing everything I can. There’s a lot of damage. I can’t heal it all at once. He’ll just need to hang for a while. I’ve got him as stable as I can get him. Hopefully it will get him through the rest of the night.” Katara says.

“My nephew is a fighter, he will not give up.” Iroh tells her, hoping that if he says it out loud he’ll start to believe it. 

Suddenly the weight of the day washes over Katara and she tears up. “It's all my fault.” She cries, “Azula was aiming for me. If I’d just stayed out of sight...” She cuts herself, “I’m sorry.” 

For the first time since walking in Iroh gets a look at Katara. She looks so exhausted and so very young. She should be a student just learning how to heal, she shouldn’t have this weight on her shoulders. But that is what the war did. It stole youth. It took children and turned them into doctors, warriors, and ash. “Thank you for trying to heal him. You need to rest. You will not be able to help if you do not get some sleep.” He tells her softly. She opens her mouth to protest but before she can say anything he says, “I know how to take vital signs. If anything changes, I will wake you up. There is a bedroom next door, lay down for a few hours.”

Katara leaves the bedroom for the first time since bringing Zuko in this afternoon. He soon as he sees the sag in her shoulders fear runs through Sokka as he asks his sister, “Did something happen? Are you okay?” 

“Zuko is as stable as I can get him. His uncle is gonna keep an eye on him for a bit. I need to rest.” She responds before walking into the bedroom. She falls onto the bed and within minutes is fast asleep.


End file.
